Opinion | Albany Can Make History for Tenants

That’s why revamping the rent laws, which are renewed regularly and expire on Saturday, has been the central goal of Democrats since they became the Senate majority in last fall’s elections and took full control of state government for the first time in years. Mr. Cuomo, who has said he generally supports most of the measures, has recently expressed annoyance that tenant activists have demanded that he be excluded from negotiations on the bills’ details because he has received so many donations from real estate interests. His annoyance is understandable — tenants need the governor, and he says he is with them. If all goes as it should, he and the legislative leaders will work together to get this done in the next few days.

The most crucial bills would end the practice of letting landlords take an apartment out of the regulatory system once the rent reaches a certain level, and put a stop to the 20 percent rent increase now permitted when a new tenant moves in.

Legislators also are wrestling with another problem of their own creation. Landlords who can’t find tenants willing to pay the legally permitted rent on stabilized apartments are free to offer discounts. Historically, a tenant had a right to that “preferential rent” for as long as that tenant lived in the apartment. Any legal increases were calculated from that baseline. In 2003, however, the Legislature allowed landlords to raise the rent to the legal maximum whenever a lease was renewed. A quarter-million tenants in stabilized apartments potentially face sharp rent increases at the end of their leases, according to ProPublica. That undermines an important goal of the stabilization program, which is to provide tenants with the ability to keep living in the same places. A sensible bill before the Legislature would restore the old rules.

Those who think it is unfair that landlords cannot always charge what the market will bear should keep in mind that the rise of property values is a result of the city’s prosperity, and of restraints on development. Landlords did not create this windfall, and it’s in the public interest to require them to share the benefits.

The government needs to make sure the owners of rent-stabilized buildings are earning a sufficient return, so that real estate remains an attractive investment. But the government also has an interest in making sure New Yorkers have places to live. The evidence suggests the balance has tilted too far in favor of the landlords.

In New York City, the net operating income from rent-stabilized buildings — rents minus operation and maintenance expenses — has increased in each of the past 13 years, according to the city’s Rent Guidelines Board, which sets annual increases in regulated apartments.

One major sticking point between Governor Cuomo and the Legislature are laws that allow landlords to charge permanent rent increases as compensation for making apartment renovations or major capital improvements to a building, like replacing a roof or a boiler. Even though they can recoup their expenses after a few years, the rent increase goes on. That’s ridiculous.